Exit

Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.
The door opens to a street like in the movies,
clean of people, of cats; except it is your street
you are leaving. A visa has been granted,
“provisionally”-a fretful word.
The windows you have closed behind
you are turning pink, doing what they do
every dawn. Here it’s gray. The door
to the taxicab waits. This suitcase,
the saddest object in the world.
Well, the world’s open. And now through
the windshield the sky begins to blush
as you did when your mother told you
what it took to be a woman in this life.

The speaker in the sonnet titled, “Exit,” is a young woman, but this speaker, instead of narrating in the first person, addresses herself using the poetic self. She reveals that she has applied for a “visa,” which indicates that must be traveling abroad. And “just when hope withers, the visa is granted,” she begins.

She feels that suddenly “the door opens to a street like in the movies.” The street while “clean of people, of cats” is her street. She is a bit anxious, however, because of her impending journey. She repeats, “A visa has been granted,” and adds that it has been granted “provisionally,” calling it a “fretful word.”

The speaker then recounts that she has shut windows that “behind you / are turning pink.” But then reports that they always do that “every dawn.” Her mood is painting everything “gray,” while the cab to take her to the airport is waiting. She observes that a suitcase is the “saddest object in the world.”

But once she is on her way, she realizes “the world’s open.” She then observes that the sky is turning pink with the rising of the sun, but she dramatizes that sunrise in a very telling way: “the sky begins to blush / as you did when your mother told you / what it took to be a woman in this life.” At the beginning of her journey, she realizes how inexperienced she is in the ways of the world, but she seems to hold a ray of hope in her heart that things will turn out well.

I believe that this poem is about leaving a life behind and starting a new one. The doors closing behind you and the empty streets of grey symbolize how you alone are embarking on a new journey with your passport, the key to a new future. While you are starting a new life with your suitcases, you are gloomy put then the skys turn blue again and you realize that your new life will be better even though you are leaving your comfort zone behind. Exit is a free verse poem that has imagery, and possibly personification when it reads that “the door to the taxi cab waits”.